19 May 10 - (Excerpts) - “Global warming” may become one of those
quaint cocktail party conversations of the past if three key climate
drivers – cooling North Pacific sea surface temperatures, extremely
low solar activity and increased volcanic eruptions – converge to
form a “perfect storm” of plummeting temperatures that send our
planet into a long-term cool-down lasting 20 or 30 years or longer.

“There are some wild cards that are different from what we saw when
we came out of the last warm PDO [Pacific Decadal Oscillation] and
entered its cool phase [1947 to 1976]. Now we have a very weak solar
cycle and the possibility of increased volcanic activity. Together,
they would create what I call the ‘Triple Crown of Cooling,’” says
Accuweather meteorologist Joe Bastardi.

If all three climate-change ingredients come together, it would be a
recipe for dangerously cold temperatures that would shorten the
agricultural growing season in northern latitudes, crippling grain
production in the wheat belts of the United States and Canada and
triggering widespread food shortages and famine.

Cool Pacific Decadal Oscillation

The
Pacific Decadal Oscillation refers to cyclical variations in sea
surface temperatures that occur in the North Pacific Ocean. (The PDO
is often described as a long-lived El Niņo-like pattern.) PDO events
usually persist for 20 to 30 years, alternating between warm and
cool phases.

From 1977 to 1998, during the height of “global warming,” North
America was in the midst of a warm PDO.

But the PDO has once again resumed its negative cool phase, and, as
such, represents the first climate driver in the Triple Crown of
Cooling. With the switch to a cool PDO, we’ve seen a change in the
El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which alternates between El
Nino (warm phase) and La Nina (cool phase) every few years. The
recent strong El Nino that began in July 2009 is now transitioning
to a La Nina, a sign of cooler temperatures ahead.

“We’re definitely headed towards La Nina conditions before summer is
over, and we’re looking at a moderate to strong La Nina by fall and
winter, which ...should bring us cooler temperatures over the next
few years,” predicts Joe D’Aleo, founder of the International
Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project (ICECAP) and the
first director of meteorology at the Weather Channel.

He is not alone in his forecast. Bastardi also sees a La Nina just
around the corner.

“I’ve been saying since February that we’ll transition to La Nina by
the middle of the hurricane season. I think we’re already seeing the
atmosphere going into a La Nina state in advance of water
temperatures. This will have interesting implications down the road.
La Nina will dramatically cool off everything later this year and
into next year, and it is a signal for strong hurricane activity,”
Bastardi predicts.

The difference in sea surface temperature between positive and
negative PDO phases is not more than 1 to 2 degrees Celsius, but the
affected area is huge. So the temperature changes can have a big
impact on the climate in North America.

Declining solar activity

Another real concern – and the second climate driver in the Triple
Crown of Cooling – is the continued stretch of weak solar
activity... We recently exited the longest solar minimum –12.7 years
compared to the 11-year average – in 100 years. It was a
historically inactive period in terms of sunspot numbers. During the
minimum, which began in 2004, we have experienced 800 spotless days.
A normal cycle averages 485 spotless days.

In 2008, we experienced 265 days without a sunspot, the
fourth-highest number of spotless days since continuous daily
observations began in 1849. In 2009, the trend continued, with 261
spotless days, ranking it among the top five blank-sun years. Only
1878, 1901 and 1913 (the record-holder with 311 days) recorded more
spotless days.

In 2010, the sun continues to remain in a funk. There were 27
spotless days (according to
Layman’s sunspot count) in April and, as of May 19, 12 days
without a spot. Both months exhibited periods of inexplicably low
solar activity during a time when the sun should be flexing its
“solar muscle” and ramping up towards the next solar maximum.

Strong correlation between sunspot activity and global temperature

Why are sunspot numbers important? Very simple: there is a strong
correlation between sunspot activity and global temperature. During
the Dalton Minimum (1790 - 1830) and Maunder Minimum (1645 -1715),
two periods with very low sunspot activity, temperatures in the
Northern Hemisphere plummeted.

During the Dalton Minimum, the abnormally cold weather destroyed
crops in northern Europe, the northeastern United States and eastern
Canada. Historian John D. Post called it “the last great subsistence
crisis in the Western world.” The record cold intensified after the
eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815, the largest volcanic eruption in
more than 1,600 years (see details below).

During the 70-year Maunder Minimum, astronomers at the time counted
only a few dozen sunspots per year, thousands fewer than usual. As
sunspots vanished, temperatures fell. The River Thames in London
froze, sea ice was reported along the coasts of southeast England,
and ice floes blocked many harbors. Agricultural production
nose-dived as growing seasons became shorter, leading to lower crop
yields, food shortages and famine.

If the low levels of solar activity during the past three years
continue through the current solar cycle ... we could be facing a
severe temperature decline within the next five to eight years.

“The sun is behaving very quietly – like it did in the late 1700s
during the transition from Solar Cycle 4 to Solar Cycle 5 – which
was the start of the Dalton Minimum,” D’Aleo says. If the official
sunspot number reaches only 40 or 50 – a low number indicating very
weak solar energy levels – during the next solar maximum, we could
be facing much lower global temperatures down the road.”

Unfortunately, there is a very real chance Eyjafjallajokull’s much
larger neighbor, the Katla volcano, could blow its top, creating the
third-climate driver in the Triple Crown of Cooling. If Katla does
erupt, it would send global temperatures into a nosedive, with a big
assist from the cool PDO and a slumbering sun.

Katla erupts about every 70 years or so, most recently in 1918,
often in tandem with neighboring Eyjafjallajokull, which is not a
good sign.

According to Bastardi, “The Katla volcano in Iceland is a game
changer. If it erupts and sends plumes of ash and SO2 into the
stratosphere, any cooling caused by the oceanic cycles would be
strengthened and amplified.”

Iceland’s President Olafur Grimsson says the eruption of
Eyjafjallajoekull volcano is only
a "small rehearsal.”

“The time for Katla to erupt is coming close . . . I don't say if,
but I say when Katla will erupt,” Grimsson predicts. And when Katla
finally erupts it will “create for a long period, extraordinary
damage to modern advanced society.”

Not a very encouraging outlook. Yet major eruptions throughout
history bear witness to the deadly impact of volcanoes.

The Tambora eruption in 1815, the largest in 1,600 years, sent the
earth’s climate into a deep freeze, triggering “the year without a
summer.”
Columnist Art Horn, writing in the Energy Tribune, describes the
impact:

“During early June of 1815, a foot of snow fell on Quebec City. In
July and August, lake and river ice were observed as far south as
Pennsylvania. Frost killed crops across New England with resulting
famine. During the brutal winter of 1816/17, the temperature fell to
-32 in New York City.”

When (Katla) unleashed its fury in the 1700s, the volcano sent
temperatures into a tailspin in North America.

"The
Mississippi River froze just north of New Orleans and the East
Coast, especially New England, had an extremely cold winter.

Global cooling: a life-threatening event

Says D’Aleo: “Cold is far more threatening than the little extra
warmth we experienced from 1977 to 1998 ... A cooling down to Dalton
Minimum temperatures or worse would lead to shortened growing
seasons and large-scale crop failures. Food shortages would make
worse the fact that more people die from cold than heat.”

Actions to limit CO2 emissions should be shelved and preparations
made for an extended period of global cooling that would pose far
more danger to humankind than any real or imagined warming predicted
by today’s climate models.